North Korea nears 'dangerous line,' Hagel says

By Matt Smith and Jethro Mullen, CNN

Updated 11:53 PM ET, Wed April 10, 2013

Kim Jong Un and North Korea's military50 photos

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un speaks during a meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea in Pyongyang, North Korea, in this photo released February 19 by the state-run Korean Central News Agency.

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Kim Jong Un and North Korea's military50 photos

A picture released by the North Korean Central News Agency shows North Korean leader Kim Jong Un appearing without his cane at an event with military commanders in Pyongyang on Tuesday, November 4. Kim, who recently disappeared from public view for about six weeks, had a cyst removed from his right ankle, a lawmaker told CNN.

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Kim is seen walking with a cane in this image released Thursday, October 30, by the state-run Korean Central News Agency.

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Kim sits in the pilot's seat of a fighter jet during the inspection.

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Kim Jong Un and North Korea's military50 photos

This undated photo, released Tuesday, October 14, by the KCNA, shows Kim inspecting a housing complex in Pyongyang, North Korea. International speculation about Kim went into overdrive after he failed to attend events on Friday, October 10, the 65th anniversary of the Workers' Party. He hadn't been seen in public since he reportedly attended a concert with his wife on September 3.

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A picture released by the KCNA shows Kim and his wife watching a performance by the Moranbong Band on Wednesday, September 3, in Pyongyang.

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Kim tours a front-line military unit in this image released Wednesday, July 16, by the KCNA.

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Kim poses for a photo as he oversees a tactical rocket-firing drill in June.

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Kim watches a tactical rocket-firing drill in June.

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A North Korean soldier patrols the bank of the Yalu River, which separates the North Korean town of Sinuiju from the Chinese border town of Dandong, on Saturday, April 26.

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In this photo released Thursday, April 24, by the Korean Central News Agency, Kim smiles with female soldiers after inspecting a rocket-launching drill at an undisclosed location.

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A picture released Tuesday, March 18, by the KCNA shows Kim attending a shooting practice at a military academy in Pyongyang.

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A North Korean soldier uses binoculars on Thursday, February 6, to look at South Korea from the border village of Panmunjom, which has separated the two Koreas since the Korean War.

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A North Korean soldier kicks a pole along the banks of the Yalu River on Tuesday, February 4.

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A photo released by the KCNA on Thursday, January 23, shows the North Korean leader inspecting an army unit during a winter drill.

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Kim inspects the command of an army unit in this undated photo released Sunday, January 12, by the KCNA.

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Kim visits an army unit in this undated photo.

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Kim inspects a military factory in this undated picture released by the KCNA in May 2013.

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Kim visits the Ministry of People's Security in 2013 as part of the country's May Day celebrations.

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A North Korean soldier, near Sinuiju, gestures to stop photographers from taking photos in April 2013.

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North Korean soldiers patrol near the Yalu River in April 2013.

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Kim is briefed by his generals in this undated photo. On the wall is a map titled "Plan for the strategic forces to target mainland U.S."

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Kim works during a briefing in this undated photo.

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In this KCNA photo, Kim inspects naval drills at an undisclosed location on North Korea's east coast in March 2013.

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Kim, with North Korean soldiers, makes his way to an observation post in March 2013.

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Kim uses a pair of binoculars to look south from the Jangjae Islet Defense Detachment, near South Korea's Taeyonphyong Island, in March 2013.

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Kim is greeted by a soldier's family as he inspects the Jangjae Islet Defense Detachment in March 2013.

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Kim is surrounded by soldiers during a visit to the Mu Islet Hero Defense Detachment, also near Taeyonphyong Island, in March 2013.

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Kim arrives at Jangjae Islet by boat to meet with soldiers of the Jangjae Islet Defense Detachment in March 2013.

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Soldiers in the North Korean army train at an undisclosed location in March 2013.

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In a photo released by the official North Korean news agency in December 2012, Kim celebrates a rocket's launch with staff from the satellite control center in Pyongyang.

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Kim, center, poses in this undated picture released by North Korea's official news agency in November 2012.

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Kim visits the Rungna People's Pleasure Ground, under construction in Pyongyang, in a photo released in July 2012 by the KCNA.

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A crowd watches as statues of North Korean founder Kim Il Sung and his son Kim Jong Il are unveiled during a ceremony in Pyongyang in April 2012.

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A North Korean soldier stands guard in front of an UNHA III rocket at the Tangachai-ri Space Center in April 2012.

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In April 2012, Pyongyang launched a long-range rocket that broke apart and fell into the sea. Here, the UNHA III rocket is pictured on its launch pad in Tang Chung Ri, North Korea.

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– A closer look at the UNHA III rocket on its launch pad in Tang Chung Ri, North Korea.

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A military vehicle participates in a parade in Pyongyang in April 2012.

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North Korean soldiers relax at the end of an official ceremony attended by leader Kim Jong Un at a stadium in Pyongyang in April 2012.

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Kim Jong Un applauds as he watches a military parade in Pyongyang in April 2012.

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A North Korean soldier stands on a balcony in Pyongyang in April 2012.

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North Korean soldiers march during a military parade in Pyongyang in April 2012.

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Soldiers board a bus outside a theater in Pyongyang in April 2012.

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North Korean performers sit below a screen showing images of leader Kim Jong Un in Pyongyang in April 2012.

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North Korean soldiers salute during a military parade in Pyongyang in April 2012.

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North Korean soldiers listen to a speech during an official ceremony attended by leader Kim Jong Un at a stadium in Pyongyang in April 2012.

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Members of a North Korean military band gather following an official ceremony at the Kim Il Sung stadium in Pyongyang in April 2012.

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North Korean military personnel watch a performance in Pyongyang in April 2012.

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A North Korean controller is seen along the railway line between the Pyongyang and North Pyongan provinces in April 2012.

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A North Korean military honor guard stands at attention at Pyongyang's airport in May 2001.

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Story highlights

North Korea "skating very close to a dangerous line," Pentagon chief says

Intelligence suggests North Korea could be planning multiple launches, U.S. official says

The U.S. believes test could occur without standard warning to aviation, shipping

Recent North Korean threats contrast with some of its other state news reports

North Korea is "skating very close to a dangerous line" after weeks of saber-rattling, U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel warned Wednesday as northeast Asia watched for an expected missile test.

"Their actions and their words have not helped defuse a combustible situation," Hagel told reporters at the Pentagon. He said the United States and its allies want to see North Korean rhetoric "ratcheted down," but if that doesn't happen, "our country is fully prepared to deal with any contingency."

"We have every capacity to deal with any action North Korea will take to protect this country and the interests of this country and our allies," Hagel said.

American radar and satellites are trained on the east coast of the Korean Peninsula, where the communist government of Kim Jong Un is believed to have prepared mobile ballistic missiles for launch at any time, U.S. and South Korean officials warned.

Japan has deployed missile defense systems around Tokyo, some Chinese tour groups have canceled visits to North Korea and the top U.S. commander in the Pacific said Tuesday that he couldn't recall a time of greater tension in the region since the end of the Korean War in the 1950s.

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Since December, North Korea has put a satellite in orbit atop a long-range rocket; conducted a nuclear bomb test, its third since 2006; and claimed to be prepared for pre-emptive nuclear attacks on the United States, though most analysts believe it does not yet have that capability.

The north has given ample warning to the world before previous long-range rocket launches -- but it is keeping everyone guessing about what it might do this time around.

Intelligence suggests that North Korea may be planning "multiple missile launches" in the coming days beyond two Musudan mobile missiles it has placed along its east coast, Pentagon officials told CNN. The officials did not have specifics on the numbers of other missiles and launchers.

One official said the North Koreans are military "masters of deception," and may have planned all along to focus the world's attention on the Musudans while they plan multiple launches of other missiles. That's a tactic they have used in the past, the official said.

The United States is less troubled about the other missiles, a second Pentagon official told CNN.

"We've been seeing some launchers moving around. These are smaller and don't cause us as much concerns," that official said. "We think these movements are within seasonal norms for their exercises."

But he didn't discount the possibility that they might launch some of those, as they often do.

The Musudan is an untested weapon that South Korea says has a range as far as 3,500 kilometers (2,175 miles). That would mean it could reach as far as Guam, a Western Pacific territory that is home to U.S. naval and air bases and where the United States recently said it was placing missile defense systems.

After a launch, U.S. satellites and radars in the region would be able to calculate the trajectory of missiles within minutes and quickly conclude whether they are on a test path headed for open ocean or potentially headed for land areas such as Japan.

The United States and Japan would then have to decide whether to try to shoot the missiles down, U.S. officials say.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Wednesday told CNN that despite being an ally of North Korea, it stands with the United States.

South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se said at a parliamentary hearing Wednesday that "according to intelligence obtained by our side and the U.S., the possibility of a missile launch by North Korea is very high," the semiofficial South Korean news agency Yonhap reported.

Yun said he was basing his assessment on South Korean and U.S. intelligence.

On Tuesday, a U.S. official said that the American government believes a test launch could happen at any time and without North Korea issuing a standard notice to commercial aviation and maritime shipping that would warn planes and vessels to stay away from the missile's path.

The official, who declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the information, cautioned that most of the information comes from satellite imagery, so it's impossible to reach a definitive conclusion because the United States cannot gather information on the ground.

He said the launch could be "imminent" but also cautioned that the United States "simply doesn't know." Based on what the United States has seen, the belief is that the missiles have received their liquid fuel and are ready for launch.

Speaking at a Senate Armed Services hearing Tuesday, Locklear said the U.S. military would not want to shoot down a North Korean missile whose trajectory would send it into the open sea. But he said if a missile's path appeared to threaten a U.S. ally, such as Japan, interceptor missiles could be used to try to bring it down.

Japan poised to react 'calmly'

Japan's deployment of missile defenses in Tokyo follows similar measures taken ahead of the North's rocket launches last year. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told reporters Tuesday that his government would do "calmly" whatever needed to be done to protect its population.

In a sign of the level of concern, however, the port city of Yokohama had to apologize for prematurely publishing a warning of a missile launch on the Twitter page of its emergency management agency. The tweet was up for about 20 minutes before being removed.

The agency said that the misleading tweet was caused by human error and that it would work on changing its system to prevent the problem from happening again.

Since the U.N. Security Council voted last month to impose new sanctions on Kim's regime over the latest North Korean nuclear test, Pyongyang has kept up a steady flow of words and acts that could give the impression of a nation heading inexorably toward conflict.

On Tuesday, it advised foreigners in South Korea to secure shelter or evacuate the country in case of hostilities on the Korean Peninsula, the latest in a string of ominous warnings.

It also kept more than 50,000 of its workers from an industrial complex jointly operated with South Korea, which had been a key symbol of cooperation between the two countries.

But on the same day, state media published articles that described festive events and international visits, suggesting a much less fraught situation inside North Korea.

The state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported that various sporting events were happening or scheduled to take place to mark the 101st anniversary next week of the birth of Kim Il Sung, the founder of North Korea and the grandfather of Kim Jong Un.

"The ongoing sports tournaments make the country seethe with holiday atmosphere," KCNA said. Kim Il Sung's birthday, known as the Day of the Sun, is a major public holiday in North Korea.

The planned events include an international marathon Sunday in Pyongyang in which runners from North Korea and other countries will participate. KCNA also noted Tuesday the arrival by plane in North Korea of a delegation from the Japan-Korea Society for Scientific and Educational Interchange.

Such visits sit strangely alongside the North's warning last week to foreign diplomats in Pyongyang that it wouldn't be able to guarantee their safety in the event of a conflict.

Some North Korea watchers have observed that the regime's domestic propaganda has focused recently on efforts to promote economic development, while the bellicose threats appear targeted primarily at a foreign audience.

The angry rhetoric has also failed to alarm South Koreans, who have lived through decades of North Korean bombast. Residents of Seoul have continued to go unflappably about their daily business.

"South Korea has been living under such threats from the past, and we are always prepared for it," South Korean Unification Minister Ryoo Kihl-jae told CNN on Wednesday. He called the current climate "a very ordinary situation."

"North Korea may launch missiles at any time, and our military is fully prepared for it," he said.

But the North's fiery words appear to have had an effect on the American public, with 41% of those surveyed saying they see the reclusive nation as an immediate threat to the United States, according to a recent CNN/ORC International poll.

That's up 13 percentage points in less than a month, CNN Polling Director Keating Holland said.

"If North Korean leader Kim Jong Un wanted to get the attention of the American public, his strategy is starting to work," Holland said.

The most tangible signs of disruption are in the Kaesong Industrial Complex, the manufacturing zone on the North Korean side of the border where more than 120 South Korean companies operate.

Last week, the North started blocking South Korean personnel from crossing the border back into the complex. And this week, it said it was pulling out the more than 50,000 North Koreans who work inside the zone and temporarily suspending activities there.

It had blocked the border crossing previously, in 2009, but pulling out the workers was a new step.

As of Wednesday lunchtime, only a few hundred South Koreans remained inside the complex, according to South Korean authorities, down from more than 800 before the North started restricting entry.

Also on Wednesday, South Korea accused the North of carrying out a wave of cyberattacks that paralyzed the networks of major South Korean banks and broadcasters last month. It is the first time that Seoul has formally pointed the finger at Pyongyang for the hacking, which affected more than 48,000 computers.